If you ask that question in ten different places, you will most likely get a million different answers!

Ten Golden Rules for eCommerce

But not today at 12:30

Today Jay Berkowitz and I will discuss the Ten Golden Rules of eCommerce in a Internet Marketing Club Webinar

I am a member of the Internet Marketing Club but have known Jay for several years. I was and am honored that he selected me to co host this webinar which may eventually be morphed into a book. Lately I have been concentrating on many aspects of eCommerce development while creating my latest project BonanzleStore

In today’s Webinar we will discuss Search Engine friendly eCommerce, how to choose the difference between selling on a large venue like eBay or Amazon or Bonanzle and your own website or both and much much more.

So join us TODAY at 12:30 PM EST at Go To Meeting!

Jason Calacanis – An Interesting look into the future of Social Media

Jason Calacanis

Most people who are interested in the Internet and in how to make money from it today tend to zero in on how to promote one business or brand.  Generally, the majority of questions involve “How do I get my website ranked higher in Google” or “Why should I be interested in Social Networks”?

From a purely local and specific perspective, these are both good questions (which will be addressed in later articles here on the Examiner) but for a real perception of the magnitude of the business that is the Internet, we all should study icons of the early days of the industry that is now called social media and follow these pathfinders leading our way into the future.

Jason Calacanis is both an icon and a pathfinder.

Brash, even harsh at times, many people revel in the idea of taking pot shots at Jason Calacanis the co-creator of Weblogs Inc. (Sold to AOL for 30 Million in 2005) and current CEO of Mahalo a people powered search engine. Jason Calacanis started as a Journalist publishing Silicon Alley Reporter, a 16 page New York based tech newsletter and later became a pioneering blogger long before anyone knew how popular and powerful blogs would become as a publishing platform.  Born in 1970 Jason is a very young .com era success story and it would seem he is not close to resting on the successes of the past.

The Wikipedia page dedicated to Jason Calacanis is somewhat sparse and impersonal. Wilipedia includes the following timeline of company affiliations:

Silicon Alley Reporter, Rising Tide Studios, Weblogs Inc., AOL, Netscape.com, Sequoia Capital, Mahalo.com

Yet this simple listing of company names does not seem to give the real picture of the vision and willingness to gamble that Jason has engendered throughout an amazing career.  Many of the projects that Jason Calacanis has been involved in were far from “sure thing” propositions.  You may not even have ever heard of Weblogs Inc to this day but chances are you have read or heard of one (or many) of the blogs that were started and supported by the Weblogs, Inc. organization in the early days of blogging or citizen journalism.

• Autoblog
• Engadget
• DIY Life
• Joystiq
• Cinematical
• BloggingStocks

The company and the vision are what Jason is all about. He brought to the world of blogging a view that it is OK to make money while being passionate about your content.  The business sense of Jason Calacanis has produced some of the most valuable publications in the world.  PC Magazine no longer publishes a print magazine yet Engadget is bringing in 2 – 3 million visitors per month reading tech related news. Tech is not dead, just tech in print is dead, who would have predicted that development in 2004 when Engadget was put together by Jason Calacanis and Peter Rojas?

All of this history is interesting, we all like to read about success stories (well most of us do) but what about the future?

Today the Washington Post re-published an article by Mike Arrington of Tech Crunch which speculates about the next CEO of MySpace. Jason Calacanis is on the short list.  Not so coicidentally Jason Calacanis sent out an email to his list of subscribers which speculates about what he would do if he were running MySpace. This article/email is entitled:

The First Ten Things the New CEO of MySpace Should Do

First 5 Paragraphs:

There has been a lot of speculation on the future of MySpace since
today’s news that Chris DeWolfe may step down as CEO.

A few disclaimers: First, I’m personal friends with Chris and think
the world of him. He is a visionary, a great leader and a true
gentleman. In our business, everyone has their run and his has been
one for the ages. If he is stepping down, I wish him the best and I
salute him for an amazing run. Second, NewsCorp is an investor in
Mahalo and has one of Mahalo’s six board seats. Complicating things
even more, the new CEO of digital at NewsCorp is Johnathan Miller, who
is also on the Mahalo board and who bought my last company, Weblogs
Inc.

Today, I’m not going to speculate on who will be the next CEO of
MySpace–or if there is even going to be a new CEO of MySpace.

I know nothing. :-)

What I would like to do today is talk about the top 10 things the new
CEO of MySpace needs to do in order to revitalize the site. That’s a
long version of me saying “this is what I would do if I was CEO of
MySpace”–something I’m not prepared to say (at this time). :-)

Jason Calacanis

The email goes on to detail the steps Jason would take to morph MySpace into a worldwide dominate social platform (not that it is unsuccessful presently but the fact is that Facebook has really taken away all of MySpace’s previous thunder).  Jason Calacanis does not say in his email newsletter that he has taken, or will take the position as CEO of MYSpace. In fact the email would seem to be an indicator that he will not be accepting the position if offered, simply because people in the running for such a lofty positions generally do not telegraph plans prior to being announced as the next great thing.

Being mentioned as a person who is on a short list to run a potentially multi-billion $ company is just an average day in the life of Jason Calacanis.  What to do? Sit down and tell 10-15 thousand of your closest friends on your email list and detail exactly what you would do if the job was yours and then move on to the daily business of running Mahalo.

Back to the start of this article:

Who is Jason Calacanis and Why Should You Care?

We now have a small inkling of who Jason Calacanis is…. Why should you care?

I care about what Jason Calacanis says and does just as many industrialists of the 1950′s studied what people like  Firestone, Ford, and Thomas Edison said and did to become successful a generation before their time.  Jason Calcanis is not a generation ahead of many of us, including myself in age but his thinking and vision are usually ahead of the general understanding of what is happening in the social media space.

I receive and read the email newsletter jason Calacanis publishes.  Contrary to what I thought it would be (a common newsletter full of promotional material and joint venture offers) the email is a genuine piece of insight each time it arrives.  The email does not arrive on any set schedule but it is filled what Jason thinks about any number of subjects. From economics and the pressures of being a start up to Internet business analysis (as in the most recent edition regarding what to do with MySpace).  Any small tidbit in any one of these emails could  predict the future of major players in the Social Media and/or Internet business space.

Care not because, as is true of many icons of industry past, Jason Calacanis can rub some people the wrong way. Care because he has been right about so many things so many times in the past and even if he was wrong he has picked himself up with the vision to move ahead and create new successes.

There are lessons to be learned from people like Jason Calacanis no matter if you are interested in the big picture and the future of the Internet /business or if you simply want to inspire yourself to keep pushing ahead when you have a passion for a small business idea that could one day become a 30 Million dollar windfall. I suggest subscribing to his emai list or listening to his regular spots on Leo Laports TWIT This Week in Tech Podcast and Video show.   Learning more about what pathfinders like Jason Calacanis have done and what successful forward thinking people share, is never a waste of time.

Follow @JasonCalacanis on Twitter

Follow @Scott_Pooler on Twitter

Imagine if you will…

One inventory distributed throughout the world on eBay. Selling in 21 global markets from your standard inventory and managing every product from one console even if you sell under multiple ebay accounts either in America or throughout the world.

• Would this be an interesting prospect?
• Does this sound like an expensive and complicated proposition?

With MerchantRun-GlobalLink these capabilities and more are available and easy to manage in a single low cost solution.  We all know selling on eBay can be challenging, exploring worldwide markets with multiple eBay accounts via eBay can be even more intimidating with other solutions, yet doing either with MerchantRun’s GlobalLink is makes the process painless.

Manage multiple selling names in as many of eBay’s global markets as you wish without duplicating inventory data or managing multiple listing solutions for each market. Know at a glance where your products are selling, where they should be offered and at the same time enjoy the ability to place inventory where it will sell at a moments notice in any market in the World.

MerchantRun GlobalLink is all of this and so much more with over 200 included eBay templates, Cross promotion rules, bulk inventory editing, outstanding customer support and free image hosting this product comes as close to the most complete eBay listing management tool yet devised as any I have ever seen.

The list of features is almost endless. One of the Best” Features” is …. NO MONTHLY FEES

iBusinessLogic Corporation is proud to have been selected to represent MerchantRun-GlobalLink in the USA. While the company and it’s software have been used by eBay powersellers worldwide for some time, it is relatively new here in the United States. iBusinessLogic recognizes the need for US based sellers to offer product to a global market. With the exchange rate imbalance and an ever tightening market at home, exploring new opportunities abroad could be the difference between profit and loss in the coming year(s).

We have negotiated a special offer with MerchantRun-GlobalLink which includes a free trial in addition to a $24.99 credit against the cost of using the software product.  Speaking of costs, we could not imagine them being any lower for a product of this caliber.  There are no setup fees, no monthly fees and no hosting charges.  MerchantRun GlobalLink only charges when an item actually sells and then the cost is ridiculously low @ 1% of the selling price with a cap at $5.00 per sale.  This is an amazing opportunity for volume sellers and low volume hogh dollar sellers alike.  The cost per sale could not be lower for this time of ultimate convenience, control including Worldwide market opportunity.

Follow any of the links to MerchantRun-GlobalLink to sign up for a free trial today.  I think you will be very pleased with how the software will improve the eBay business you currently have.

Full disclosure – iBusinessLogic represents MerchantRun-GlobalLink in the USA.

Wedsneday 1:14

Today, at 1:14 PM Eastern Standard Time the Agents of Revenue show, featuring myself, Scott Pooler and John “ColderICE” Lawson will air on Talkshoe

Todays topic is timely and in the spirit of the Holidays…

We will review the year that has passed and highlight the best and worst TURKEYS in ecommerce.  Now, if you are like me, you look forward to a nice Turkey every November.  I love a warm and juicy bird on the table at Thanksgiving… But John Lawson may have a different view of what the Turkeys of eCommerce have been up to in 2008…

So tune in, or listen on i-tunes our talkshoe talk show broadcast is automatically converted to a podcast for listening at your leisure.  If you like the show, please leave a review on either Talkshoe or i-Tunes – Or Both.

And… HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Over on the Official Google blog is a very interesting article with a not so exciting title.

The Art of the field study

Why is this article a great read for any Internet marketer or eCommerce merchant?

Any insight into how Google optimises it’s own pages to reduce bounce rate and increase the stickyness of a single page, is good insight.

One great nugget of information in the article is…

“We find that searchers often turn so quickly to Google that they don’t really think too much about what they’re actually searching for. It’s surprising, but often we’ll see people trying to find out something about a topic, but then never actually mention the topic itself. That is, there’s often a big discrepancy between what they’ll tell me (the human observer) they’re trying to do, and the search terms they enter into Google”.

Google uses advanced research methods to determin how people find the information they are looking for on the Internet in the Google search engine.  One method is shown in the video below.

The video, provided by Google shows eye tracking on a typical search page and how people go about making the decision to click on a particular result in miliseconds. It is a methodical process and seems to indicate people are very quick in the decision making process when landing on a search page.

The article goes on to detail how Google has changed its own “Advanced Search” page in an effort to reduce the “bounce rate”
on this essential Google search page.

Reading the “Official Google blog” is a good idea for anyone interested in learning how the experts of search improve upon the considerable knowlege base they already have accumulated.

How do small business websites benefit by using WordPress as a CMS?

We can site many examples of success but one case of a new business with a brand new website is particularly interesting. The story is unusual but not uncommon and as in many small business stories, it can only be covered with multiple chapters of information.

The client is Keith Bloemendaal and his company is Raleigh Fence Contractors LLC.
We have written about this client before primarily over on our sister blog: All Business Auctions, we followed up on a small business website project we started last May but due to some client delays did not go live until late July 2008.

If you want to refresh your memory of the process involved with this project, please check these posts.

• Blog Profile – New Business Website/Blog Gets it’s Start With iBusinessLogic

• Blog Success Follow Up: Carolina Custom is now Raleigh Fence Contractors

  This is the result:
  

Since our last article(s) about Raleigh Fence Contractors, much has happened. The site has only been up for about 3 months but it is drawing traffic organically and has a Google page rank of 3. During the first month online Keith experimented with Google Adwords, spending approximately 1 dollar for each hit Adwords sent the site. Keith figures in the same time period (first month) he collection 2800 additional hits organically due to his blog article writing. That’s a $2800 payback on the investment of building this website in the first month.

Additionally, and more importantly, while competing in a very tight marketplace for Google page placement, Raleigh Fence Contractors started life as a website on about the 15th page of search results. In less than 3 months with regular blog posting and relevant content, Raleigh Fence Contractors, LLC has rocketed its website up in the search placement on Google to number 4 of 817,000 results for the term “Raleigh Fence”.

Raleigh Fence on Google

Keith Bloemendaal has added to the success of this small business website by actively learning the techniques and tricks of social marketing. Through his consistent efforts at adding to the conversation and with some luck, Keith has had the following outside articles written about him and his Website/blog.

• http://conniebensen.com/blog/2008/08/11/successfully-taking-a-business-online/
• http://constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com/2008/08/blogging-for-business-case-study.html
• http://northcarolinaconstructionnews.blogspot.com/2008/08/nc-blogger-for-business.html

We are proud of the Raleigh Fence Contractors development at iBusinessLogic.com, maybe not as proud as Keith Bloemendaal but satisfied none the less. It is always great to see a client follow your advice and follow through to find success with a Small Business on the Internet.

Site Comparison Analytics

Compete.com

Many merchants in America are finding the eBay marketplace to be a challenging environment of late. The question we receive most often concerning eBay is where else can I go? eBay of course has a huge lead on almost any competition, but if for one reason or another, you have decided to look elsewhere (besides your own website) to sell goods, where should you go?

According to Compete.com it seems etsy “Your place to buy & sell all things handmade” is the place to look if thoughts of a new place to sell handmade items fill your mind.  Etsy has the most traffic of any competitor to eBay (besides Amazon) and that traffic graph is heading upward and a steady confidence building pace up 179.8% in the last year.

Of course, adding Bonanzle.com to this chart is both unfair, and a compliment as they have only just started the site at Bonanzle last July. Month to month with very little track-record to analyse, Bonanzle has grown 190.3%.

Onlineauction.com experienced a nice bump last February but since then the traffic graph has been flat and actually losing -7.2% of their projected traffic in the last month.

Based on this limited and incomplete snapshot of information, one could conclude etsy.com is the only place to look when considering a move off of eBay or simply to add an additional channel of sales revenue.  But I will submit there are many more factors to consider than simple traffic when choosing a place to offer your wares.

More on other considerations in a follow up post soon…

Last Thought: Keep an eye on Bonanzle.com

Product Sellers Seminar
Location: http://www.productsellersseminar.com/

Description: Product Sellers Seminar
Start Time:

16:00
Date: 2008-09-17
End Time: 17:00

See our calendar in the sidebar for other dates of events coming soon…

Timothy Jones is an Internet marketer with a passion for Mickey Mouse and Politics.  Most would think these two diverging topics would not be found easily co-existing within the same person, but Tim Jones is an exception among many rules. Tim is passionate about conservative politics and at the same time exuberant as he can be about the artistic and creative land of Disney. Tim has found the best of both worlds merging them into a lifestyle and career.

Many of my regular readers may remember an article I wrote about Tim’s eBay business and how it was effected by the digital download reversal at eBay in the Trading Assistant Journal. Digital Delivery on eBay – A Crime or Just Bad Wording?

Tim has moved onward and upward with his business since eBay put a very major kink is his previous digital delivery information marketing business plan.  We chat almost daily on Twitter and since Tim was able to attend Affiliate Summit 2008 in Boston I put aside my obvious jealousy and asked him if he wouldn’t mind bringing back a report for our readers about the event?  Of course Tim jumped at the chance to bring our readers news from his travels, as he is a travel based writer of some renown…

Without further adieu, here is Timothy Jones Guest Blog report on Affiliate Summit 2008 – Boston

Affiliate Summit Recap

My first Affiliate Summit started as a long, full-day sprint.  Things definitely slowed down after the first day, but this conference requires an amazing amount of energy and stamina.  During the day, you have two or three sessions going on at any one time.  Choosing the appropriate session sometimes created a dilemma for me, however, knowing that videos of all the presentations would be on the Affiliate Summit site gave me comfort.  At night, there are dinners, parties, and social events that go on into the hours of the next morning.  Then, you get up early to start the process over, again.  This goes on for at least three days, after which you need three more to recover and process everything you encountered on the previous three.

The sessions covered all aspects of the affiliate marketing business to appeal to all members of this wide and varied industry, including publishers, advertisers, and networks.  Additionally, the Meet Market and Exhibit Hall provided voluminous possibilities for networking.

My goal for the conference was to learn as much as possible, so networking was not one of my focuses, however I did get to meet an amazing number of people that I’d only spoken to online, prior to this event.  It’s always interesting to meet people face-to-face that you’ve only “seen” online, before.  For those attending the conference in the future, I feel this may have been one of the mistakes or “lessons learned” from this conference; take advantage of every opportunity to meet and network with everyone.  Nothing will jump-start or expand your business like knowing the right people to help you along or make that introduction to the right person for your business.

A couple of the more interesting sessions were the Performance Marketing Alliance session and the Ethics in Affiliate Marketing session.  Both of these sessions sparked significant emotions and vehement opinions from both the panels and the audience.  As the affiliate industry grows, both the need for an association and adherence to ethical standards will become more apparent and necessary.

One of the issues that concerned me going into the conference was the number of merchants, vendors, and businesses presenting information at the Summit.  Oftentimes, when businesses present at conferences (especially a conference for marketers), you tend to hear sales pitch after sales pitch.  This was definitely not the case for Affiliate Summit.  While there were a couple of exceptions, I was impressed with the quality of the information presented, without a hint of a sales pitch.  Some presenters even went so far as to ask for discussions about their own business to take place outside the session, to avoid any impropriety.  One of the founders of the conference, Shawn Collins, told me they do not tolerate presentations that are nothing more than sales pitches.  I think this policy is invaluable and separates Affiliate Summit from the crowd.

Overall, the conference was very laid-back and enjoyable, but also very informative.  I am still processing through the lessons learned and action items from the conference, even weeks later.  A couple tips for future attendees that I took away from my experiences:

Link Bait

Link Baiting – Oh, it sounds somewhat sinister…

The term just reeks of something less than ethical yet it is one of the best tactics new and seasoned bloggers alike can use to build up the page rank and visibility of a blog.

What is link baiting?

Our friend and client, Keith Bloemendaal, has just given the world a perfect example on his newly finished blog website Raleigh Fence Contractors LLC.

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Keith’s latest post is titled Friday Blog Link.

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In this post Keith mentions he plans on using this tactic every Friday, what tactic you say? Link Baiting is the artful and somewhat creative method of bringing attention to yourself and your blog by linking to respected blogs and bloggers. When writing a link bait article the intention is to be complimentary to peers in your niche and o slightly out of your niche in an effort to get these same bloggers to either write about or link to you and your blog in return.

In his article Keith has linked to no less than 6 blogs and bloggers he respects and he continues the link parade with no less than 7 additional links to other pages and articles within sites owned by these bloggers.

See the example paragraph below

Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger, Chris Brogan, Connie Benson

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, and numerous SEO and marketing blogs, I always keep a close eye on my mentor, and close friend Scott Pooler and his writings on iBusinessLogic and Trading Assistant Journal core the divx online

• crestor attorney ohio

. I want to focus every week on Fridays to the blogs I read and discover. We will cover many topics over the coming weeks, this week we will focus on a home improvement blog I subscribe to called Helpful Advice for Home Construction Improvement:

For a guy who is relatively new to the blogging world, I must say that Keith never ceases to amaze me with the grasp he has on social networking. This link bait article of his was done with style and with real respect for the people he is hoping will return the link love he has extended.

Obviously in my case it has worked – this article is my way to return the favor to Keith and the Raleigh Fence Contractors Blog. I am sure I will not be the only one returning the favor.

This is really the point… exchanging links is a primary goal for most bloggers, this endeavor is something traditional website owners do not have as much of a grasp upon. Without inbound links to your site, from relevant sites, you will not climb in page rank. Search engines love to find new links and they love you more if those links end up on your site somewhere.

The best part of link baiting within blogs is it is almost completely automatic. This is because when you place a link to a blog on your blog, the blog platform (WordPress, Movable Type, Blogger etc) automatically sends a message to the other blog called a trackback. This informs the other blog you are mentioning them in your blog. That’s how I found out Keith had mentioned me in his blog, from a trackback. In essence, it is really bait… You send out the link bait into the blogosphere and just sit back and wait for the fish to come back and read what you said about them.

So go ahead, Link Bait Away… Its really not sinister or rude… Just a way to say hello… look at me, I like your blog, do you like mine?